What is your experience with 3rd party support on HP servers/SAN?

My co-worker recommended a new 3rd party support vendor for our production HPUX servers and HP EVA SAN's to cut cost. Although I and several colleagues prefer HP support on critical HPUX Oracle/SAS servers and HP EVA SAN's (maybe because we are the hands-on people maintaining those servers and san's 24x7).

It is easy to see that 3rd party support vendor doesn't provide the same support items as HP support. They don't cover certain software support either. My co-worker seems not much care about these major differences; he kept saying the price is lower! It is only $30K lower for 1 year but they cut off many important support items. The 3rd party's price quote is kind of vague and confusing.

What is your suggestion? Have you ever heard about "Delta Support for HP Servers?" Can you please share your experience? Thank you.

Re: What is your experience with 3rd party support on HP servers/SAN?

One of my clients is AIG of NJ. Yes, that AIG. I was with them before and after their problems when they got bailed out by the gov. Post gov, they went 3rd party support and everyone hated it.

Support was vaild during week days and standard work hours. Part were purchased not from HP, who is the manufacturer, but from China.

So, factor this all in. How do you respond? You make sure all your failover systems and DR systems are ready to go and can take the company through a short term period, like a week, at a moment's notice.

Re: What is your experience with 3rd party support on HP servers/SAN?

I don't really know what I'm talking about since I never used one, but I can only advise you to be careful anyway.

You might be able to get away with Proliants but with EVAs and Integrity/9000 servers, your third party might not have quick access to a huge pool of specific parts.

Personally I wouldn't recommend 3rd party support for anything that is production unless you follow Michael's advice and can remain 100% independent with total hardware resiliency. What I like by using HP, is that THEY will ultimately be the ones to blame if something doesn't go well. With a third party, sure, you'll save your client or boss a lump of money, which will make you look good. But remember that bosses are bosses: The day you've been left with unsatisfactory service or response time from 3rd party, this will turn against you and everything will be your fault.

So make a business case. Underline the problems you've already noticed such as the confusing quote. Then recommend against it if you're not comfortable. If management thinks otherwise, let them take responsability for that call.